Musical instruments have always been very popular in society—providing entertainment, social interaction, self-expression, and a business and source of livelihood for many people. String instruments are especially popular because of their active playability, tonal properties, and portability. String instruments are fun and yet challenging to play, have great sound qualities, and are easy to move about from one location to another.
Guitars are one type of string musical instrument. The musical artist, or user, plays the guitar by using his or her fingers, or a guitar pick, to displace one or more of the tightly-strung strings from a neutral position and then releasing it, causing the string to vibrate as it returns to its neutral position. The guitar pick offers certain advantages over the fingers in terms of sharpness of the string vibration and clarity of the note played.
A guitar has a certain number of strings, e.g., five or six strings, which are tightly strung along a fret board between a bridge and neck assembly. One end of each guitar string is typically firmly attached or held to the bridge. The other end of each strings is respectively attached to geared machine heads on the head stock assembly, which are used to tighten and loosen the tension of each string.
The string tension is very important to the performance of the guitar. Each string of the guitar is designed to resonate with a specific frequency. Given the resonant frequency of each string, the guitar player presses his or her fingertips of the off-hand on different locations of the strings on the fret board to produce different musical notes. If the string tension is not properly adjusted, then the base resonant frequency of the string is off and the notes played will not sound right. The guitar is then considered out-of-tune and will not play as designed or intended.
A variety of tuning techniques have been devised over the years to set the proper string tension on each guitar string. In most if not all cases, the user must displace the strings with his or her fingers and then monitor an external tuning device to make adjustments to the string tension. Since the user's hands are occupied with the guitar, it is difficult to simultaneously work with the tuner. The user must go back and forth between the guitar and the tuner to adjust the string tension.
A similar problem exists for other electronic modules used with guitars. For example, if the guitar player is using an effects processor to enhance and adjust the acoustic qualities for the instrument, then he or she must work back and forth between playing the instrument and making adjustments to the effects processor. The same can be said for other electronic modules, such as signal conditioning, signal distribution, and signal conversion, which are used to enhance and manipulate the audio signal from the guitar. Simultaneously handling the guitar while trying to adjust electronic modules used with the instrument is cumbersome and inefficient.
At the same time, each type of electronic module used with the guitar must be connected to the instrument with cables. The time and effort it takes to disconnect one electronic module, e.g. a tuner, and connect additional electronic modules, e.g. effects processors, is inconvenient and burdensome.
A need exists to more readily access and utilize electronic modules which enhance the performance of musical instruments.